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Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America's Future
Examines the link between political and cultural oppression in the USSR
- GenresHistory
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
56 people want to read
About the author
Richard Pipes
117 books152 followersBorn in Poland, Richard Pipes fled the country with his family when Germany invaded it in 1939. After reaching the United States a year later, Pipes began his education at Muskingum College, which was interrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the Army Air Corps and sent to Cornell to study Russian. He completed his bachelor's degree at Cornell in 1946 and earned his doctorate at Harvard University four years later.
Pipes taught at Harvard from 1950 until his retirement in 1996, and was director of Harvard's Russian Research Center from 1968-1973. A campaigner for a tougher foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in 1976, he led a group of analysts in a reassessment of Soviet foreign policy and military power. He served as director of Eastern European and Soviet affairs at the National Security Council from 1981 until 1983, after which he returned to Harvard, where he finished his career as Baird Professor Emeritus of History.
Pipes taught at Harvard from 1950 until his retirement in 1996, and was director of Harvard's Russian Research Center from 1968-1973. A campaigner for a tougher foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in 1976, he led a group of analysts in a reassessment of Soviet foreign policy and military power. He served as director of Eastern European and Soviet affairs at the National Security Council from 1981 until 1983, after which he returned to Harvard, where he finished his career as Baird Professor Emeritus of History.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 23, 2024
Foreign Affairs
Winter 1984/85
Reviewed by John C. Campbell
Professor Pipes, the Reagan Administration's guru on this subject, presents a cogent, consistent and comprehensive statement of his thoughts on Soviet grand strategy for global hegemony, together with some proposals on what to do about it.
He places himself neither among the doves, with their faith in pragmatism, good will and détente, nor among the hawks, with their concentration on military strength and containment.
A main theme is the connection between the U.S.S.R.'s internal system and its foreign policy, and the need for the West to intensify the crisis in the former in order to cope with the latter.
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An interesting aside by the odd left of center
Jacobin Magazine
Relentless anticommunism defined Pipes as a propagandist rather than historian. More talented cold warriors would occasionally admit the obvious, such as Robert Conquest, who conceded that the Bolsheviks won “the bulk of the working classes in the cities.”
Pipes, however, wrote only for the ideologically converted and rarely made factual concessions that undermined his political mission.
Nor did Pipes engage with his critics such as the social historians of the 1970s and ‘80s who displaced the anticommunists. The new social history by scholars such as Alexander Rabinowitch, Ronald Suny, and David Mandel had replaced the simplistic Cold War narrative by placing the actions and sentiments of ordinary workers, peasants, and soldiers at the center of the revolutionary process.
But because they had paid little attention to his work, Pipes wrote in his memoirs, he decided to turn the “tables on them and largely ignored their work as well.”
Having published five monographs by the mid-1970s, Pipes was recognized as the foremost conservative authority on the Soviet Union.
In 1976, Pipes led a group of military and foreign policy experts, known as Team B, to counter the CIA’s own Team A, in an analysis of the Soviet Union’s military strategy and the supposed “strike first” threats they posed to the United States.
His principal adversary was none other than Henry Kissinger, advisor to John F. Kennedy during the 1960 election campaign, as proponent of a fictional “missile gap” with Soviet Union that would help propel Kennedy to victory.
//////
Winter 1984/85
Reviewed by John C. Campbell
Professor Pipes, the Reagan Administration's guru on this subject, presents a cogent, consistent and comprehensive statement of his thoughts on Soviet grand strategy for global hegemony, together with some proposals on what to do about it.
He places himself neither among the doves, with their faith in pragmatism, good will and détente, nor among the hawks, with their concentration on military strength and containment.
A main theme is the connection between the U.S.S.R.'s internal system and its foreign policy, and the need for the West to intensify the crisis in the former in order to cope with the latter.
///////
An interesting aside by the odd left of center
Jacobin Magazine
Relentless anticommunism defined Pipes as a propagandist rather than historian. More talented cold warriors would occasionally admit the obvious, such as Robert Conquest, who conceded that the Bolsheviks won “the bulk of the working classes in the cities.”
Pipes, however, wrote only for the ideologically converted and rarely made factual concessions that undermined his political mission.
Nor did Pipes engage with his critics such as the social historians of the 1970s and ‘80s who displaced the anticommunists. The new social history by scholars such as Alexander Rabinowitch, Ronald Suny, and David Mandel had replaced the simplistic Cold War narrative by placing the actions and sentiments of ordinary workers, peasants, and soldiers at the center of the revolutionary process.
But because they had paid little attention to his work, Pipes wrote in his memoirs, he decided to turn the “tables on them and largely ignored their work as well.”
Having published five monographs by the mid-1970s, Pipes was recognized as the foremost conservative authority on the Soviet Union.
In 1976, Pipes led a group of military and foreign policy experts, known as Team B, to counter the CIA’s own Team A, in an analysis of the Soviet Union’s military strategy and the supposed “strike first” threats they posed to the United States.
His principal adversary was none other than Henry Kissinger, advisor to John F. Kennedy during the 1960 election campaign, as proponent of a fictional “missile gap” with Soviet Union that would help propel Kennedy to victory.
//////
Displaying 1 of 1 review